The Dying Spark
by Felix Wynter
Summary: What if Salem attacked Remnant 20 years before team RWBY was formed, what if Roman, Neo and STRQ managed to defeat her, what would happen then? In this world we follow the story of Nick, a disturbed boy with strange powers and a mysterious past, he must battle the newest threat to Remnant, and fight his own demons at the same time. Part one of the Deviants of Fate trilogy.
1. Chapter 1: Tired

Chapter one: Tired

_I just want to watch the whole world burn_

_Lost a million times and I won't learn_

_Show me someone innocent_

_I'll show you there's no proof_

_I may be gone but I'm no fool_

I hurried down the dark, grimy street, hands in my pockets. It had rained not an hour earlier and the smell of wet concrete is still lingered in the cool night air. I spotted my destination and quickly crossed the street and enter the warmly lit Dust store.

The old man who owned the store looked up and gave me a warm, genuine smile.

He's the only one who actually smiles when he sees me, most people just drag me into a nearby alley and demand the money I owe them, or make jeering comments about my purple eyes.

"Hello Nicky, what can I get ya?" He asked kindly.

"Half a pound of shock Dust, and don't call me Nicky." I snapped.

The old man just grins carelessly and turns around to get me my Dust.

Some people.

You can rob, lie, cheat and steal your whole life and people will call you misguided, but you save some old guy's daughter from getting raped _one time, _and suddenly you're Monty fucking Oum.

He's just another delusional soul that probably believes in second chances and a greater purpose, willfully ignorant to the fact that the only reason we are here is to have a couple bratty kids and die.

The old man fills a cylindrical metal canister with shock Dust and hands it to me. I reach for my wallet and hand him the 500 lien. I snatch my Dust and turn to leave the store.

As I'm making my way towards the door, a group of six people file in. They're cloaked in black hooded jumpsuits and bandannas, looking like the kind of person who would slit my throat if given the chance.

If I knew what chain of events opening my mouth would bring, I would have bit my tongue and walked past, completely silent and continued my shitty excuse for a life.

What actually happened began once I said the following;

" Ah, _spooky_. I can see you put all three of your collective brain cells into thinking up ideas for costumes, or do you all just have shitty taste in villainous garb?"

"Move along you little freak! Buy some better clothes while you're at it!" The burly woman snapped in my direction.

"Brave words for a woman dressed in a discount gimp suit." I said in a surly tone.

The woman stared coldly at me, tilting her head to instruct her followers. They formed a semicircle around me, closing in like Beowolves upon a wounded Hunter.

"You talk like a tough motherfucker, don't you, punk?" The leader growls as she unsheathed the dangerous-looking blade hanging by her waist, taking a wide swing.

I block the blade with my forearm, stumbling back from the force of the blow. I look to my arm, seeing the cut in my skin heal nearly instantaneously. My prized, black, jean jacket wasn't so lucky.

"This is my favorite jacket you cunt!" I scowled, snatching the Dust canister and clenching it in my fist. Within a moment, raw power surged through my fingertips and up my arm, crackling and tingling into my chest where it spread as a stinging warmth. Suddenly, I'm wide awake and alert, my eyes buzzing and the taste of aluminum foil burning was in the back of my throat.

"Oh baby, I forgot how it feels to be a badass." I say as a open my eyes, seeing the henchmen begin to slowly retreat. I couldn't help but smirk, knowing it's because my eyes are a shimmering shade of deep purple.

I thrust my palm in their direction, arcs of spiraling energy send the henchmen flying back across the room. One of them manages to stumble out the store front and run away, but the rest draw their weapons and rush me blindly.

I narrowly dodge the _swish _of a sword and punch the offending jackass in the stomach, sending him flying across the room. I grab the next one's arm mid swing and punch their elbow, bending their arm backwards, before kicking in their kneecap and dropping them. They fall to the floor with an ungracious _thump_. I roundhouse kick the next grunt in the face, before turning back and breaking the final man's jaw with a satisfying _crunch_. Finally I grab the leader's head, then calmly proceed to slam her head against the shopkeeper's countertop until she stops struggling.

I drop the leader and look at to bloody and bruised henchmen for a second before I turn around and see a girl in a red hooded cape with headphones hanging around her neck staring at me with an open mouth.

"That...was..._awesome_, you were all like_ kazapp, kerpow, wazam_!" She dances around mimicking me shooting lightning and punching."Are you a Hunter? You have to be a Hunter to know how to fight like that! _Oh my god,_ can I have your autograph?! This is so exciting!" She squeals dancing around like a teenage girl that has just met her music idol.

_This girl's gonna give me another migraine_. I think as I pinched at the bridge of my nose as she continues to bounce around and jabber endlessly.

"Oh by the way, I'm Ruby Rose! nice to meet you Mr.?" She states extending her hand.

"Nick, _just_ Nick." I answer punctually as I push her hand away.

"And, hate to break it to you but I'm..." I started to say before the door opened, and a woman walked in. I recognized her from the old Salem war documentaries nearly immediately; Glenda Goodwitch. She stood menacingly in the doorway, staring down upon Ruby and I.

"I'm...uh...I'm...not a hunter." I finish as I curled in on myself slightly, my body trembling with unease.

"What?!" Ruby yells as she stares at me in disbelief.

I've been sitting on a grimy bench in the bland hallway outside the Vale PD interrogation room for a few minutes now. Staring at the white wall got old a long time ago. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and quickly yanked out my packet of cigarettes. I took one and lit it with a spark of electricity from my finger. I took a long pull as I leaned back and there I sat for a few minutes before the door opened up. I quickly take one last drag before stubbing it out on the bench and throwing the butt on the floor.

Ruby walked out, looking pleased with herself. She noticed me, and quickly ran over as I stood up, and started babbling quickly.

"I did it, I did it, I got into Beacon! Oh, Mom and Dad and Yang and Aunt Raven will be so proud, can you believe it?" She chirped with annoying levels of enthusiasm.

"Okay...what do you want, a cookie?" I scowled at her.

"Weeell, I just had a whole plate in there and mom says I can't have a lot of sugar before bed, but definitely later!" She said, completely oblivious to my sarcasm.

"Anyway gotta go, bye!" she says as she sprints away down the hall. Mrs. Goodwitch walked out of the room and looks at me, scorn in her eyes. She wrinkles her nose in disgust at the lingering smell of cigarette smoke and looked pointedly at the 'no smoking' sign before jerking her head for me to go into the room.

As I walk in I see Professor Ozpin sitting at a table on the side furthest from me. I walked over and sat down at the table, mentaly preparing myself for the guilt trip of my life.

"Hello Nicholas, or as Ruby calls you, _just Nick_." He states as he eyes me strangely.

"Yep that's right." I confirm, leaning back in the chair.

"You are a remarkable man, Mr. Nicholas, you claim to be 18 years old. The police have to take your word for it because you have no birth certificate, no parents we know of and no school records whatsoever. It's as if you just popped out of the ground one day. You've been arrested 17 times since you were 15 years old, eight times for public intoxication, six times for fighting in public, twice for petty theft and once for breaking and entering." He rattles off, never taking his eyes off of me.

"You also have a reflex ten times that of an average human, can easily score 280 on any standard IQ test, and a psychoanalyst described you as having,_ a lack of empathy that scares me a lot less than it should._" He stated with an inquisitive look in my direction.

"Sounds about right." I shrugged, my eyes glazing over his notes.

"With that said, I would be happy to offer you a place at Beacon Academy, orientation is in a week and classes start the day after that, we will also provide–"

"Whoa whoa whoa, first Ruby, now me? Why are you accepting a little girl and a fuck up into you oh-so-prestigious academy?" I snarled, turning my attention back to the professor.

"Well, Miss Rose is several years ahead of her classmates at Signal and you, well..." he reaches inside his pocket and takes out his scroll and pulls up a video. When I look it's security camera footage of me beating up the crooks at the Dust store.

"I believe those are members of the Dark Claw, a White Fang splinter group. Highly trained and very dangerous. And you dealt with them like a toddler knocking over a bunch of wood blocks." He smiled at me, his smile yet to reach his eyes.

"Alright, so I can fight. so what?" I sighed, exasperated.

"It's that or we leave you to the police." He suggested, causing my eyes to widen.

"But I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Says who?" He answered innocently.

"I say so!" I retaliated as I crossed my arms, just as everything clicked in my head. I grabbed the sides of my chair, rocketing to my feet.

"You're fucking blackmailing me." I stated, dumbstruck.

He smiled mindlessly up at me, tapping his foot on the floor.

"I don't know what your talking about, Nicholas." He deadpanned, tilting his head up at me.

I leaned forward, pressing my hands into my eyes and groan.

"Quit smiling you fucking fossil."


	2. Chapter 2: Who do you trust?

Chapter two: who do you trust

_Crawlin with the rats and the roaches_

_People movin in and out of focus_

_Imma need to check all your coats cause_

_You never know when the enemy approaches_

_I can't do this, I should have picked jail! They'll find out and send me back and then it'll be all over!_

I shook my head to dispel the jitters and took another drag of my cigarette to calm my nerves. As I looked around I became more and more certain that whoever designed this Air Ferry station deserved to be executed in a brutal fashion. Their cute idea to have shiny marble everywhere was blinding me and the columns were 3 centuries out of taste.

The worse part, shockingly, was not the architecture, but the hopeless little contraceptive failures that took up most of the station, ready and waiting to be sent away and reprogrammed into disposable death machines. Added atop the painful buzz were the fucking parents pretending they care and blubbering about how 'their little baby is all grown up'.

I was ripped from my thoughts when I heard a familiar voice, I looked and saw Ruby, the girl from a week ago. She was with an older woman, presumably her mom, who was wearing a white hooded cape. Next to them was another pair of women. One was a well-built, blond-haired girl with lilac eyes who looked a little older than Ruby and the other was a woman dressed in red and black who had long black hair and red eyes.

The quartet stopped near the edge of the platform, the red-eyed woman started checking to see if the blond had everything and, at the same time, the white hooded woman leaned down and hugged Ruby.

"I am so proud of you my little rosebud, I know you'll be a great hero someday." she said to Ruby as she let go.

"I wish Dad was here." Ruby said looking sadly at the ground.

Ruby's mom frowned and lifted her daughter's chin up, so she could look at her.

"You know your father hates being away just as much as we do, but do you remember what he said last week?" she asked

"That the Grimm are almost completely out of Vale, and he should be home soon." Ruby answered with a small smile

"Yes, and I bet you anything he'll head straight to Beacon to spend the day with you and Yang." she smiled back.

I looked away in disgust. I stubbed out my cigarette on the column then turned to walk away, where I ran right into a brown-haired rabbit Faunus, who dropped the camera she was holding.

"Sorry." She immediately squeaked in a foreign accent I couldn't place. As soon as she looked at me she started blushing like mad and looked away.

"Watch it next time." I snapped, I reached down to grab her camera, unfortunately, she did the same thing and e smacked our heads together.

"Fuck!" I say as I stumble back.

"Sorry." She squeaked again, she dipped down quickly and grabbed her camera, blushing even more, before sprinting off.

"Oum, what's her problem," I muttered.

I heard a loud ca-chunk and I looked to see the airship had docked and had just started boarding.

I jogged over and entered the ship, once I was on I made my way to the back corner.

I light another cigarette and relaxed against the wall. People give me dirty looks and move away to avoid the smoke.

A few seconds later the girl with the camera moved her way through the crowd. She saw me, stopped, blushed hard and took a deep breath before slowly walking up to me.

"Um...hi…can I...sta-stand here." She mumbled, blushing harder with each passing moment.

I exhaled a lungful of smoke and shrugged "Its a free kingdom, I don't give a fuck."

She leaned against the wall next to me and opened up the back of her camera and started fiddling with it. After concluding she wasn't going to bother me I went back to relaxing.

After about a minute of her tweaking, a jackass walked out of nowhere and slapped her camera out of her hand where it fell to the ground and smashed. A small amount of liquid from inside the camera came out in a stream and landed on the sleeve of my jacket.

I grabbed the guy's collar and felt my blood begin to boil while electricity crackled up my spine.

"What the fuck was that for, I just got this thing fixed!" I spat at him as I pushed him backwards.

"What the fuck do you want, you little bitch." he snaps at me.

"My _name_ is Nick, and I think we have a problem." I said glaring at him.

"If you didn't hang out with Faunus freaks like her, we wouldn't have a problem." He spat, giving Velvet a dirty look.

"This isn't about her, this is about ruining my jacket you Grimmfucker." I growl, his face contorts in anger and he swung at me, I caught his fist in one hand and bent it to the side. Then I sent electricity spirling up my arm and into his.

The effect was glorious, his eyes rolled back into his sockets, his legs gave out,his arms curled inwards and he choked out a strangled yell. When I let go a few seconds later, his clothes were smoking and burnt in places and everyone was looking at me and the girl.

'"Shows over, mind your own fucking business." I said to the onlookers. I then looked at my jacket to assess the damage, suddenly a pair of hands with slim fingers offered me an alcohol wipe.

"It shouldn't stain your jacket, it's a harmless coolant." The faunus girl said as I took the wipe "But if i't does I'll buy you a new jacket!"

I wiped away the liquid and inspected it, after looking at it for a second I picked up the girls camera and examined it.

I focused my energy on it and a few moments later electricity wormed its way out of my hand and into the camera. The small arcs began to mend the camera, and in a few seconds it looked perfectly new

"Now we're even." I say as I hand it to the girl, who mumbled a shy thank you.

Just as I'm about to relax some more I hear someone call my name from across the ferry, I look up and see Ruby running towards me, pulling the blond-haired girl in tow.

"Nick! You got into beacon too! Wow, this is amazing! This is my cousin Yang by the way! You'll probably be the best in school! Oh, who is this?" She asked, indicating to the girl.

"Oh, um...what was your name?" I asked her

"I'm Velvet, I'm a second year." She mumbled shyly

"_Cool a second year_, you must know all about beacon!" Ruby gawked.

"You never mentioned how hot this guy is." The blond says as she made a show of eyeing me up with a hungry look in her eyes. I rolled my eyes and took a drag of my cigarette.

"YANG!" Ruby shouts giving her cousin the evil eye."You just met him, I'm sure he doesn't want to have sex with you."

Yang puts on a look of fake hurt, "_Ruby_, are you implying that I had uncouth intentions with this man." She gasped

"Like you weren't thinking about it." Ruby smirks.

"You guys seem pretty close for cousins." I commented sarcastically.

"Well that's because we're practically sisters, you see, my Dad ran off when I was a kid and I ended up living with my Aunt Summer and Uncle Qrow." Yang explained nonchalantly.

"Ok...holy shit...not something you usually hear in the first minute of meeting someone." I said, surprised at her openness.

"I like to get that out of the way so there's no confusion later on." she shrugged.

"Yeah, no shit." I affirmed.

Yang asked Velvet about her camera while Ruby walked over and leaned against the wall, blatantly copying me.

"Yo, can I have a puff of your nic stick bro." she said in a horribly corny fake tough guy voice.

I calmly passed her my cigarette, she took a drag and immediately started hacking.

"What'd we learn." I say as she falls to her knees coughing.

"_My insides are dying_." she groans from the floor.

I laughed as Yang picked her up and pulled her towards the drinking fountain.

The intercom welcomed us to Beacon as the ship docked and we disembarked. As the freshmen were staring at the campus in awe, Velvet and I weaved through the crowd. After a moment she nervously coughs to get my attention.

"I just want to say thank you...ab-abo-about what you did on the ship." She blurts out.

I stared at her in surprise before furrowing my brow and turning away.

"This is a one time deal so watch that goddamn thing." I scolded her, pointing at the camera as I walked off, she made no attempt to follow.

After walking for a bit I found a bench and decided to take a breather. After checking to make sure no one was around before I reached into my jacket's inner pocket and pulled out a hip flask. I remember one of my buddies from the streets used to say that the best medicine was the kind over 120 proof. One swig later and I was already forgetting Velvet and everything that happened on the airship.

I looked down at my flask and ran my thumb over the familiar engraving on the front, an old fashioned lantern, radiating light. A wooden cabin. A roaring fire. A man swinging his arms wide as he told me stories. A woman with...

A pair of voices startled me and I hid my flask as two nearly identical Fanus rounded the corner. They were both skinny with red hair, but one had slightly longer hair, greenish-blue eyes and was wearing tan cargo pants and a tropical flowered shirt. His companion had shorter hair, blueish-green eyes and was wearing a dark blue tank top and black pants.

"I'm telling you, it simply isn't true." The long-haired one said.

"You never know, the Schnees are some fucked up dudes." Answered the other

The longer-haired one spotted me and walked up to me.

"'Scuse me sir, but do you believe that the Schnee Dust Company is poisoning the population with shipments of contaminated dust." He asked me as if it is the most normal thing in the world.

"Um...no?" I answered with a suspicious look.

"See!" He yelled at his twin before turning back to me.

"Sorry about that, I'm Trevor Hex, and this is my twin brother Fred" he explained

"Nick," I said "just Nick."

I get up and walk away, for some strange reason they follow me, still arguing about something or other. I decided their presence is tolerable, for now.

We entered the Training area and found seats, after a few minutes people filed in and once the room was full Ozpin walked onto the stage and tapped the mic.

"I'll keep this brief, many of you came here because you felt it would be easy, with Salem gone and the Grimm nearly extinct, how could it not be. But I'm here to tell you differently. Yes, the Grimm are more docile and lower in numbers, but they are by no means any less dangerous. So if you came here for gold stars and pats on the back, you've come to the wrong place. If you've come to be a warrior, then we will get along much better."

He walked away and Glynda walked over and instructed us to head to the ballroom. As I walked over there, I wondered how many puppies I kicked in a past life to deserve this.

"Prove it."

"You can't deny the facts."

"Oh yes, I can."

We had been in the ballroom for a few hours and I had changed into scuffed up sweatpants and a hoodie and found a nice soft bit of floor to sleep on, Trevor and Fred were sitting on their sleeping bags, arguing about something stupid again and I was half-listening. According to Fred, the Atlas military is training birds to spy on the people of Atlas, his 'proof' is that he swore a bird followed him home two weeks ago.

"If you can't prove it, I'm not listening." Stated Trevor. Fred was about to counter-argue when a pillow came out of nowhere and hit him in the face.

"Oi, will you two tossers shut the hell up before I beat your arses!" A girl with a Cockney accent and strawberry blonde hair yelled at us, she was wearing a black tee-shirt and grey pyjamas, and looked like she was in the middle of sharpening a great sword/shotgun.

"Well, I'm gonna go take a piss." I declared as I got up and stretched. As I was heading for the restroom I saw Ruby, she looked to be in the middle of an argument with a white-haired girl.

"'Scuse me." I say in an attempt to get her to move.

"Oh great another one, what do you want?" She says in a snobby tone as she turns to me.

"Now is that any way to make new friends." I say sarcastically

"Maybe I don't want new friends." She started crossing her arms

"Alright fine, be known as the girl who flunked out because she couldn't work with her fellow students." I shrug

"W-w-what!" She yells, prompting several people to shush her "That's not true, i-in fact Ruby and I are going shopping next week." She states with a matter of fact look on her face.

"Really!" Ruby exclaims with a look of blind admiration for the elder girl on her face.

"Yes." She confirms with the same look of defiance on her face, which quickly changes to a look of horror as Ruby hugs her tightly.

"Too late." I smirk as Ruby squeals

"Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!" She chants "I promise you won't regret it!"

I leave the poor flustered girl too Ruby and head to the bathroom. When I got back, Trevor was already asleep and Fred had a look of concentration on his face.

"Hey quick question Nick, am I annoying." Fred asked, looking at me.

"Define annoying." I answered.

"Like, do I talk too much."He clarified.

"There's a big difference between talking too much and talking needlessly, sure you talk a lot, but you always have something good to say. I'd rather listen to you talk for ten years then listen to some moron talk about jack shit for ten minutes."

He looked puzzled for a moment, then he smiled and rolled over. I followed suit and was asleep soon after.

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So I'm back, after a year.

The good news is Chapter 1 is gonna get spellchecked and have some changes made to it today, and chapter 3 might come out today as well.

Follow and review if you like it, glare at your computer if you didn't, if i spelt something wrong review and yell at me.

Seeya


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